Farming and Ranching in Conflict

Several of the surviving members of the Buguias elite still hoped at war's end to recreate the pastoral economy. After a few years, cattle could again be purchased in Cervantes, and several Buguias baknangs had reaccumulated enough capital to begin rebuilding their herds. In the intervening years, however, unfenced garden plots had invaded many of the best pastures. Before long the community was embroiled in a classical struggle between agriculturalist and pastoralist. The former, anxious to avoid the considerable expense of fencing, called for a change in customary law to reflect the transformed economy, while the cattlemen advocated returning to the antebellum status quo.

Following customary precedent, the contestants argued and settled their dispute in tong tongan deliberations. Despite the high status of the leading pastoralists, the gardeners had numerical ad-

vantage and economic logic on their side. The new rules thus called for the constraining of all livestock to fenced pastures, pens, or tethers. Whichever option they chose, would-be graziers now faced considerable expense: tethered animals had to be moved to a fresh site every few hours, and lands completely dedicated to pasture would require extensive fencing.

The few men who endeavored to enclose pastures seldom managed to mark off areas larger than 10 hectares. Since few commoners fenced their lands, the Buguias cattle barons could now lend few animals. And those who did fence their pastures had difficulty mobilizing the labor necessary to maintain grazing capacity. Soon Eupatorium and other noxious weeds infested most enclosed sites. Because of fencing costs, graziers increasingly withdrew into areas naturally barricaded by slope breaks, gullies, and other obstacles. They also learned to divert water to accentuate erosion in small gullies, thus creating superior barriers. Since pastoralists often skimped when they had to fence, their animals periodically escaped, and the conflict thus continued to smolder. Cattle owners and tenders were frequently assessed for crop damages, and irate gardeners who maimed trespassing animals were sometimes levied fines as well. As such incidents mounted, gardeners clamored for stricter fence regulations.

Most Buguias men still hoped to raise cattle, but this was usually possible only if one were willing to move them about on a tether. With the new labor demands in the gardens, the average household was limited to a single animal. Responsibility for the family cow now generally passed to children and the aged. Theoretically, leashed cattle could be pastured anywhere, so long as they did not damage gardens, but conflicts erupted nevertheless. Animals often pulled loose and ruined gardens, but more problematically, households sometimes quarreled when one claimed the right to pasture its cow in an area that the other sought to convert to a vegetable plot. Ultimately, securing a tax declaration would give the prospective gardener the right to determine land use, so long as he or she actually began to cultivate the site.

The new rule especially hindered hog raising, as swine could not forage effectively if tied, and they required much tighter fences than did cattle. Henceforth, hogs were increasingly confined to small houselot pens. After the transformation of customary law,

the few traditionalists who clung to large scale swine raising were forced to relocate, for a household could not raise more than a few hogs unless the animals could forage. Such couples thus moved up to the higher zone east of Buguias proper, where many of the village's swine had ranged in the prewar days. Gardens and fences were still uncommon here in the 1950s, and mast-producing oak trees abounded nearby. Eventually, however, most free-roaming hogs even in these remote districts disappeared under pressure from the advancing vegetable frontier and from the steady progress of individual tax declarations.